Marketing Email Click-Through Rates Increase 55 Percent With Three or More Social Sharing Options

GetResponse Analysis of 500M Emails Highlights Benefits of Social Media Sharing and Integration in Email Marketing

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Jun 21, 2010, 08:00 ET

WILMINGTON, Del., June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- GetResponse, a leading email marketing provider for the SMB sector and flagship product of online solutions provider Implix, today announced the results of its "Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report". The study revealed that email messages that included a social sharing option generated 30 percent higher click-through-rates (CTRs) than emails without a social sharing option, and messages with three or more sharing options generated 55 percent higher CTRs. Emails with a Twitter sharing option returned over 40 percent higher CTRs than messages without any social media links, indicating the benefits of sharing may be vastly underestimated.

Founder of GetResponse and CEO of Implix, Simon Grabowski, commented: "The impressive 55 percent CTR increase achieved by adding social sharing options tells us it's not enough to integrate campaigns with social media networks – the power is in sharing. For example, Twitter users are posting 55 million tweets per day.(1) And Facebook has over 400 million active users worldwide, each with about 130 "friends".(2)Many of these millions of users are potential ambassadors of our customers' brands. Imagine the impact on campaign results if every recipient shared a message with 130 friends, and so on and so on! The best part is that there's no added cost to include social media sharing, so it's pure ROI."

The GetResponse study analyzed social media integration and sharing using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Digg in almost 500 million emails sent by 19,149 GetResponse customers. The following demonstrates social media network preferences, actual usage, and related response rates. Please note that the term "social emails" indicates at least one social media sharing option is used.

Social Media Integration Highlights

Emails that included at least one social sharing option generated over 30 percent higher CTR than emails that did not include any social sharing options.
Emails that included at least three social sharing icons generated over 55 percent higher CTR than messages without any sharing options.
60 percent of all social emails included only one sharing icon. Only 11.2 percent of social emails included 3 icons or more.
Twitter was the most popular social sharing option, included in 67.2 percent of all social emails; Facebook came in a close second at 62.7 percent.
Emails shared on Twitter returned CTRs of 10.20 percent − over 40 percent higher than messages not linked to any social media.
Almost 19 percent of SMB marketers (GetResponse users) used the Twitter integration feature (linked their campaigns to Twitter) at least once. Only 13.5 percent included social sharing options.
SMB marketers used Twitter social media integration twice as often as social sharing links.

Simon Grabowski added: "We hope these results inspire our users to experiment more with social media sharing. It may seem abstract or intimidating to some, but it's really like having a conversation with a customer or friend that keeps on going and going. I truly believe that if your messages are relevant, timely, and interesting, and you include social sharing icons in your messages, your audience will gladly help your brand message ripple across the Internet."

Survey Data

Access the full GetResponse report at http://www.getresponse.com/learning-center/reports/social-sharing.html.

About GetResponse

GetResponse is an easy-to-use email marketing platform designed to increase email marketing ROI faster than any other medium for SOHO and SMB marketers. It is the first SOHO/SMB email marketing solution to offer email-to-speech capabilities, audio and video recording, storage and delivery, Twitter integration, and an iPhone® application. The solution includes email analytics, unlimited follow-up messages, 300+ HTML templates, online surveys, and professional-level training and support. Launched in 1999, GetResponse has grown to over 140,000 active users from 172 countries, delivering 5 billion permission-based emails per year.

About Implix

Implix was founded in 1999 by Internet marketing prodigy and entrepreneur, Simon Grabowski, whose vision of helping SOHO and small business marketers around the globe improve marketing efficiency, reduce costs, and increase profitability continues to define the company. Today, Implix maintains worldwide operations, with offices in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

For more information, please visit www.implix.com or www.getresponse.com.

(1) http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-stats-2010-4

(2) http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

SOURCE Implix